JERUSALEM, 19 September 2005 — No Israeli police officers are to face charges over the killing of 13 Arabs during protests at the start of the Palestinian uprising five years ago, officials said yesterday.
A police inquiry, which was commissioned by the Justice Ministry, concluded that there was “insufficient evidence” to justify a prosecution over the shootings in October 2000 which sparked riots across the north of the country.
The commission said that it was impossible to identify some of the police involved and said that firing at the legs of the protesters was justified.
Twelve Israeli Arabs and a Palestinian were killed when police opened fire on demonstrators, barely a month after the beginning of the intifada.
The decision not to prosecute anyone over the deaths prompted an angry reaction from Arab Israeli groups and left-wing MPs.
“This is an unjust decision which we are not prepared to accept,” Shawki Khatib, the head of body representing Israel’s Arab minority, told reporters.
“We will not just soak this up and allow the guilty police to go on with their lives without a care in the world and if necessary we will address international organizations” in order to get justice, he said.
Arab Israeli MP Azmi Bishara warned that the commission’s recommendation could have explosive consequences.
“You cannot play with the blood of sons. This is not only an extremely sensitive but also potentially explosive affair,” said Bishara. “Since the beginning it has been clear that the police inquiry has been more interested in protecting the perpetrators of these crimes than bringing them to justice,” he added. Zehava Galon, an MP for the left-wing Meretz party, agreed that the victims had been robbed of justice.
“This is a scorning of human life,” she said. An earlier government inquiry into the deaths and subsequent riots found that they were partly due to “the government handling of the Arab sector (which) has been primarily neglectful and discriminatory.”
The report by the Orr commission in September 2003 attached severe blame to the Israeli police, recommending that some senior police officials never hold office again.
Israeli Arabs account for 1.2 million of Israel’s almost seven million-strong population.
They are the offspring of some 160,000 Palestinians who did not flee or were not expelled from their land after the creation of the Jewish state in 1948.
Israel’s minority Arab community reacted with fury to the decision not to charge any police officer over the killing of 13 pro-Palestinian protesters.
Dozens of victims’ relatives and their supporters protested outside government buildings in Jerusalem after a police inquiry concluded that there was “insufficient evidence” to justify a prosecution.
“We will continue fighting for justice until they arrest the criminals,” said Nadeera Khamaise, whose 19-year-old son Hamad was among the 13 victims. “They killed my son in cold blood. He was my youngest child, my heart and my soul,” added Khamaise, who comes from the upper Galilee region.
Other relatives wore T-shirts with pictures of the 13 victims or carried banners with slogans: “The killers must be jailed” and “We will not forget and we will not forgive.”
